Yahoo! Throws Schools a Curve

Will virtual teaching replace classroom teaching?

This week, in Austin, at SXSW, the eponymous Music-cum-everything-Festival, edupreneurs are presenting, attending, and probably drinking-a-lot-at seminars.  (I hyphenated that last bit so it would work as a noun in the series.  I don’t think it worked.  But that’s such a good way to attend an education seminar.  I’ve heard.) At one of these seminars at SXSW, the founders of virtual classroom biz standouts InstaEDU, Udemy, and Course Hero will be discussing the future of online education.  These companies are all vying for the opportunity to shape the future of how—and where—students learn.

There’s a lot of excitement (and fear) in schools about the future use of technology in education.  The impact of innovation could (and, I think, most definitely will) dramatically change our national school landscape.  Union reps, politicians, property owners and—always last and always least—teachers are all very interested how the virtual classroom will continue to improve or diminish instruction.

SXSW.edu, as the Fest is called, comes one week after Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer announced that there would be no more telecommuting at her company—and it set the blogosphere aflutter.  Her claim, basically:  distance working ain’t working out so good.  So, naturally, I wondered about the serendipity of it all. Can online classrooms—teleteaching/telelearning—replace the classroom, brick and mortar stuff, that teachers have been doing since Socrates?  If Mayer thinks that Yahoo!’s productivity is a victim of distance-working, might she also think that school’s productivity will also suffer with distance-teaching? 

Teleteaching and Telelearning:  The State of the Art

SXSW.edu, sponsored and backed by Bill and Melinda Gates (which means something politically, for those of you keep track), will be exploring how technology is already impacting pedagogy.  The seminars this week include a particular focus on what I call “teleteaching:” when teachers record lessons or lectures and distribute them online. Teachers have been offering online education for years, of course, but teleteaching seems poised to become a real competitor to “in the classroom” teaching.

Last year, Stanford University professor Daphne Koller got a lot of press when she rolled out Coursera.org at TEDGlobal 2012. The site offers “online course enrollment” in MOOC's from places like Standford, Harvard, and Yale—if you’ve ever heard of such places. You can get credit from these schools without ever going into any classroom at all—a big deal given some of those university names.  Coursera’s website boasts all kinds of wonderful things, mostly the democratization of education.  That’s a good thing.  But do students learn? 

Colleges, high schools, and elementary schools across the country have been expanding their online campuses for years, of course—but rarely as a complete replacement of actual classroom experience.  A couple of years ago, TED shined a spotlight on online teleteaching pioneer Kahn Academy (another Gates beneficiary). At Kahn, students download specific lessons on things such as Algebra, History, and Chemistry. Kahn seems to be working towards the supplemental rather than replacement model.  It has been collaborating with schools across the country, helping teachers “flip” the classroom: the students teach themselves at home with the online instruction then come to the classroom for practice and specific instruction from the actual teacher.  This is right up my alley-- and I have spent some time on Kahn's website.  The model looks pretty good and where I'd put my money for where things are headed.

But does the online instruction work?  The University of Phoenix has long been the butt of many jokes—but it’s been there for years, offering online courses. People get degrees from there and, I suppose, opportunities and raises from the accreditation.  It ain’t Harvard, but a degree is a degree.  But let’s get to the nitty gritty:  do people learn from a virtual instructor?  A couple of years ago, I took an online driving course to lower my car insurance.  Did it make me a better driver?  Heck, I don’t know. 

For years, the internet has been offering free education on places like YouTube and eHow. Many of my students are teaching themselves using online courses of all sorts, learning everything from how to play songs or do dance steps to how to write a better analytical essay.  I have seen students teach themselves ukulele on YouTube.  I’ve taught myself how to chop vegetables, install lights, and how to order grilled meat in Rio during Carnival. So the argument for online video instruction certainly has a foothold in the practical world. 

The Virtual Classroom Is Here To Stay

The lingering question in EVERY conversation about innovation in education is: does this stuff work?  The problem is that there isn’t enough data that we can reliably crunch to lean one way or the other.  But it doesn’t matter.  Like so many other changes in education made in the last 20-30 years (the ubiquity of standardized tests, the use of teacher evaluations, experiments with the length of a class period), it doesn’t matter if it works.  It only matters if people (politicians, school boards, customers, etc) buy into it.

And that’s why this is just more evidence that edupreneurship is the future of education.  Teachers need to think like entrepreneurs because the market forces simply win the day.  As a supporter of public education, it’s a tricky reality to get my head around.  But teachers MUST be on the ground floor of innovations like virtual instruction.  We need to be making the content, testing techniques and strategies, and adapting our models for online consumption.

Will Yahoo!’s Mayer be seen as a visionary for her call for a return to the workplace?  In the end, I think not.  She’s trying to tighten a ship and send a signal to her company—but I’m sure that Yahoo! will still retain a strong telecommuting model.  The future will have us working everywhere, connected online.  Heck, that’s the way it is now.

Online education is a natural extension of the Socratic model:  students learn best when they are exploring things and teaching themselves. Socrates famously used questions. Today, and especially tomorrow, we’ll most certainly be asking most of our questions online.

My hope? That good teachers will be the ones running the sites, making the videos, and managing the process.

 Citations:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/margiewarrell/2013/02/27/get-to-the-office-or-get-out-why-marissa-mayer-has-made-a-smart-move/

http://www.sxswedu.com/

http://blog.ted.com/2012/07/18/completely-free-online-classes-coursera-org-now-offering-courses-from-14-top-colleges/

History Class, With Booze

A master teacher holds class in New Orleans, LA

The thing about drinking absinthe? It numbs your lips.

It doesn't happen fast. You're three or four minutes into your glass of milky green poison before you notice that you're losing sensation in your tongue.

“It's a sipper,” Joe tells you. “I saw a guy do five shots of absinthe once. Wasn't pretty. Guy couldn't walk. Stuff is still illegal in most states.” Joe's eyes twinkle from under his straw fedora. “It's legal in New York, San Francisco, and here, of course.”

He continues from his seat in a little bar in Pirates' Alley in the French Quarter. “Tennessee Williams used to say that these were the only three cities in America. Every place else is Cleveland.”

And so goes Joe Gendusa, professor of libations on The New Orleans Cocktail Walking Tour. A retired teacher and school counselor, Joe is a guy who loves his job. He often smiles as he tells a condensed history of one of the world's greatest cities, replete with stories of pirates, ghosts, archbishops, and presidents through the lens of an upturned highball glass.

It's so awesome to learn from a teacher who loves his material.

I've had absinthe before. But I never had it in a century-old bar that reputedly served it under the table during an international absinthe prohibition that began in the 19^th Century. The anise-spiked spirit opens its flavor with a little water and a burning sugar cube. It'll take you on a trip, people. And that's just one of the featured drinks of the tour.

I had a beautiful Pimm's Cup (a concoction of caramelized gin, lemonade, ginger ale, and cucumber) that's best made at the Napoleon House. Did you know that Napoleon planned to escape imprisonment in Europe by fleeing to New Orleans? He had the 2^nd floor of the Napoleon House ready to receive him. He died before he could move in.

I had a bizarre and absolutely wonderful cocktail named The Bayou Bash. Made with wine and Southern Comfort, it's as if Mark Twain made a drinkable rocket fuel: southern, hilarious, and ready to send you into orbit. The drink was invented by a native bartender who wanted to find a way to marry a distinctly Old World wine with a New World spirit. Like the best of any creole cuisine, the beauty comes in the exotic marriage of strange bedfellows.

Joe had us all at “hello,” using historical anecdotes to improve the cocktails-- and vice versa. Like any master teacher, his passion for the material not only engaged us: it made us work for him. Sure, we got to drink and that was cool. But, that wasn't what made the experience masterful.

We wanted to see the city the way Joe saw it. We wanted the secret knowledge of a passionate expert. Joe had us right where he wanted us. He had a class that wanted to learn.

That's a pretty far cry from most classes in our schools.

We've built our schools on the concept of containment and control. We value security way more than we value curiosity.

Administrators and teachers, hobbled by a culture that fears danger more than it hungers for growth, huddle in the shadow of litigation. Instead of putting discovery at the center of learning, we've put stability and security.

What makes Joe such a wonderful teacher reads like an indictment of what is missing in most public school classrooms:

1. Joe is as important as his curriculum. He loves his topic and relishes his time sharing his knowledge.

2. His classroom is wherever the learning happens. He literally explores his material with his students.

3. Instead of attempting to control learner curiosity, Joe surfs it.

4. The length of his class is based on how long it takes to learn, rather than on a predetermined time allotment.

Now, I'm not saying that the best education happens with a drink in your hand.

I. Would. Never. Say. That.

I am saying that we must recognize that the best learning puts great teachers in charge of where, when, and how students learn.

We need to start asking better questions about what makes a great teacher. About what makes a better learning environment.

And let's start drinking better cocktails.